A/N: This was origionally a prompt put up by DeathStallion on DA and ChimeraDark on the LJ Twins-x-Ratch comm.
Listen younglings, and listen well for this is your final warning. The nightwalkers still stalk the earth with potions and magics that preserve them from the sun. They hide their optics neath colored lenses, their faces just as yours and mine. Younglings beware for now you know the nightwalkers are no longer. Walkers only of day and night, they who are immortal. So watch your backs, your shadows too for one thing still holds true: The walkers of night and day have no reflections and only a pale winter shadow on the brightest summer day.
"What do you want with the healer, mortals?" Bumblebee trembled as he stared up transfixed at the white nightwalker above him. The beast had him and Cliffjumper pinned against the filth covered wall in the dark alley, a single arm pressed effortlessly across their chests firmly enough to make their armor creak with agonizing strain. Bumblebee wanted to tell the creature, to spill all his secrets save his own life, but this nightwalker possessed optics the shade of lightest lavender.
Nightwalkers showed their power in the intensity of their optics. The older, more powerful ones had optics darker than midnight, deeper than the final, consuming kiss of death. The memory of the nightwalker pair in the Broken Helm with optics of dark twilight kept them mute. If this young one could destroy them with a single arm the others would do so much worse. They kept quite not to save their lives – those had been forfeit the moment the red and gold nightwalkers had caught them in the shadows. No, Bumblebee and Cliffjumper kept silent for the sake of their souls.
"Ask the nightwalkers of crimson and gold. They know why we are here." Cliffjumper ground out breathlessly, optics burning with helpless fury…
Bumblebee bolted up from his berth, intakes gasping from the remembered flux. Wheljack had proven himself to be a good mech despite being a nightwalker and First Aid was one of the few mechs to treat them as equals despite their size. He chuckled silently in the pre dawn darkness, the true terror was Wheeljack's big brother. Ratchet had been – less than enthusiastic when he found out about them. No, he had been livid. Bumblebee had never seen quill pens become lethal projectiles before. The roaming vermin, scraplets, that fed off the meager scraps of energon of mechs had found out otherwise. Bee still shuddered at having to the pull quills out of six of those small frames, all terminated with pin point accuracy by the enraged healer.
Yes, that had truly been an awakening. To discover that a mortal lived that was more terrifying than three powerful nightwalkers had been a truly terrifying experience. Finding out that said nightwalker was the brother to one and quasi-lover to the remaining two had been less than comforting.
Bee slipped from his shared berth in silence, allowing Cliffjumper to sleep in. Across from the berth they shared, First Aid slept on the other. Both healers had run themselves ragged between the small villages leading to Crystal Spire and attending all the healing wards in their two days before the winter storms hit.
Bumblebee looked the younger healer over carefully as he passed. Their imposed rest had been good for the healers, allowing them to recover from the arduous journey. Still, Bee could not shake his unease. It was the quiet calm that was getting to him. Their third day of being locked within the city of Crystal Spire, trapped from the raging storm that had cocooned the city in a deep blanket of snow. The city dwellers had carved tunnels in the hard packed snow using the excavated blocks to seal every entrance leading to the underground chambers spread labyrinth-like beneath the city.
Now, sealed between the packed snow leading underground and the ever thickening layer of snow above they had nowhere to go but the inn and what few stores and homes their series of tunnels led to. This, Ratchet had informed them later, was normally his two week respite in the middle of the long winter circuit around the villages. This time their oh so merry band of mechs and monsters had only each other for company.
After weeks of watching their backs and guarding the young healer it left Bee and Cliffjumper anxious, looking for the shadows to leap out at them, evil nightwalkers come for their souls. Knowing they were trapped with three of the monsters did not help their disquiet, and knowing Ratchet could cow them all only made the isolation harder to take.
Wheeljack sighed contentedly, grateful he had summoned Bluestreak to Crystal Spire before they had left Pax Crystalia. Now with the height of winter upon them and the constant whiteout that had engulfed them that kept all within their homes Wheeljack had little to do but enjoy their solitude and being with is lover.
The inn keep, Oil Slick had sent the last of his temporary travelers to safer quarters days ago before the widow of the southern passes being open finally closed. With the winter travelers safely out of the city the massive warren of ancient buildings and new constructions had turned into an echoing void of ice and twisting tunnels. Since the tunnels had been dug out six days ago they had not seen any others outside of their crew.
Even Oil Slick had left for safer quarters. The inn seemed overly large and echoing about them yet the strife and turmoil of the previous week had vanished. Ratchet and the merchant twins seemed to have finally gotten past their differences, although their arguments were spectacular to watch. It never got old, watching as a seeming mortal made two ancient nightwalkers from another time cringe in terror.
"You seem happy, well you normally seem happy, but happier. I thought it was because you were with Ratchet. He is your brother and you like each other but now I think you prefer to be out of the Sanctuary." Bluestreak looked up from his sprawled position on the floor, ever present long bow lying beside him.
"Maybe," Wheeljack smiled, his face mask for once completely absent from his frame. The gaps in his denta where his fangs had once been only made his smile more endearing to Bluestreak, and Jack knew that just his smile would win most anything from Bluestreak. "They shared their anti-sun wax with me, the twins, that is. For the first time that I can remember, I've been able to sun bathe. I did that, before you came. Did I tell you? Everyone thought I was insane sitting out in the snow in only my short trousers basking in the weak winter sun. My plating still felt blistered from the heat afterwards but it was worth it.."
Bluestreak sat up, laying his head in Wheeljack's lap, embracing his lover's legs gently. "Then we shouldn't go back." He looked up to Weeljack's face, normally closed with the barest trace of a smile he now seemed free. "You can learn to make their wax and mechblood substitute. We would never have to see you face the hunger. Prowl and Jazz can make a refinery and make Sanctuary self sustaining. We companions wouldn't have to worry about draining ourselves. Jacky, if you could do this, we would all be free."
Wheeljack smiled, pulling Bluestreak up into his lap, wrapping lethal arms ever so gently about the smaller mortal's slim waist. "Alright, I'll spend the rest of the winter figuring out our salvation." He smiled, nipping gently at his lover's soft lips as he stood, heading for the large berth in the next room. The isolation was definitely a good thing.
Ratchet sighed, torn between insanely happy, contentedly wrapped securely between his lovers and borderline insane from their constant, doting affections. He turned to a new, clean page in his ever present tome of notes diligently chronicling the few random patients he had cared for since the tunnels had been finished and they had been abandoned in this lonely inn.
Behind him, serving as backrest and masseuse, sat Sunstreaker. Periodically gentle kisses pecked his neck, telling of the golden mech's affections. In front of him, Sideswipe lay sprawled between legs, exposed chest serving as his writing table. Ratchet found himself randomly chuckling as he worked, wondering how his lovers had come up with their strange arrangement and how Sideswipe was managing to stay still for so long. He was sure he would have to make up to them for working later, not that he minded. He found their new isolation did have some perks.
They had come to this fragile point of complacency, all equally wrapped up in each other in this secluded island of cold silence. Yet, Ratchet felt a constant urgency within his lovers, some deep longing need that he could not fulfill and as always, he wondered how much longer he would keep their interests.
"You're thinking too hard." Sideswipe chided lightly, turning his helm to place a soft kiss on Ratchet's thigh. "That quill hasn't moved and you're silent."
Startled, looking from the now blank page he had turned to and the nearby candle that had burned halfway to its holder. "So I was," Ratchet replied as lightly as he could. The curse upon the brothers forced them to hold his affection or perish, but what happened to them if he lost theirs? It was not a question he could answer, Aid's borrowed tome of Alpha Trion's sealing of the twins ten thousand years ago had been more vague than anything and was only adamant that they would never more prey upon the living.
"I'm bored" Sideswipe finally whined, beginning to wriggle under the heavy tome.
"Oh no," Ratchet sighed dramatically, "If my table won't hold still then I just can't work, now can I?"
"Nope," Sunstreaker replied huskily, head resting lightly on Ratchet's shoulder, audio fin pressing lightly against Ratchet's helm. "Play with us?"
Ratchet chuckled, "Sure what is it today?"
"Hide and seek!" Sideswipe cried as he slipped eel-like out from under the tome, "And you're it!"
Ratchet blinked Sunstreaker and Sideswipe vanishing before his optics like younglings. Suddenly the urgency from their side of the bond lessened. Whatever was bothering them would wait. Right now, he had eternal mechlings to catch.
It was a week til midwinter, the icy tunnels had grown colder full of unnatural chill. With three nightwalkers in their group they never questioned the otherworldly cold that sent spirals of mist rising randomly from the frigid floors. Yet as the dreary days lengthened nearly to a month a dark shadow had begun to fill each and every spark.
The minibots grew restless, their optics roving to and fro. First Aid seemed to snap more and Bluestreak slowly descended into a frightfully silent still. The nightwalkers were also similarly affected. The twins' fangs seemed to lengthen, their plating taking on an unnatural bluish hue that only made their dark optics seem to glow an evil black. Wheeljack seemed so ashen white like a glowing avatar from Primus' paradise. Yet Ratchet seemed to be immune around him a glowing warmth that spread and held and warmed each mech who dared sit by his side.
Outside the healer's presence though the others seemed to fade, the wait for the raging storms outside to break seemed too much for them to take. Yet the growing shadows through the tunnels stole the warmth of firelight from their lanterns leaving them with cold light that did nothing for the spark.
Ten nights of isolation had made them edgy and fractious. The tenuous quiet loving calm between Ratchet and the twins had turned into nightly battles of barbed tongues and wits. The minibots had begun random fights each taking minor damage yet neither hurt enough to face the healer's wrath. Even Wheeljack and Bluestreak, once the image of devoted love now threw barbed words at each other that drove icy needles into the ever quieter mortal's spark.
Ratchet fumed, storming through the silent icy tunnels, needing space to calm down after their latest fight. He had yelled at Bluestreak. The poor young spark had been moping, sitting silently while the storming emotions of the others had raged about him. Ratchet had just wanted to ask Bluestreak what was wrong, he could see the turmoil the youngest of their group was in, but everything went so wrong.
"What's wrong with you?"
Ratchet shuddered at his own words. Why couldn't he have just asked Blue what was troubling him? Or if he was feeling well? Such simple words he spoke on nearly a daily basis most of the year and now they seemed beyond his reach. He was angry with himself, angry at the twins for constantly fighting, arguing even when they interfaced. Ratchet sighed, frustrated. Maybe that was the seat of the issue, their constant need for affection and physical intimacy had not abated yet, mid way through their pleasures he found himself sandwiched between two bickering nightwalkers. It did nothing for the constant burning in his circuits that longed for release or the throbbing in his spark where he still loved the morons despite their antics.
Finally he reached the end of the tunnel – and spotted a thin glowing strip of daylight through the ice. The storms had broken! He nearly cried out in joy, but the movement of mechs beyond the ice stopped him. There were too many to count, their forms frequently blotting out the rising sun, and, Ratchet observed as his spark suddenly filled with icy dread, they were frantic. Slowly in the silence of the tunnels he heard the faint echoing of shouting.
Fists, pick axes and spades pounded on the ice. Fires burned and red hot metal sheets were quenched in the unyielding ice. Then Ratchet saw the droplets, freezing moisture on the outside where the countless vague masses toiled rolled up the icy shell dripping towards heaven. The sign of evil froze Ratchet's spark as nothing else could – then the screams began.
Ratchet raced through the long icy corridors leading back to the inn as terror gripped his spark in its cold embrace. They had been feeling them, nightwalkers filling the tunnels beneath the city. Their presences had been growing along with the strange violence that had filled Ratchet's spark and those of his companions. Ratchet shuddered, gratefully clutching the healing satchel across his chest thankful he had grabbed it out of habit when he had fled from Bluestreake's hurt and accusing optics earlier.
Now racing back he saw signs they had overlooked everyone complacent within the insidious thrall. Icicles grew from partially revealed eaves reaching like bare finger struts towards the concealed heavens. Drops dripped upwards to the ceiling making matching icicles pointing towards the ground. The evil within their confines so thick it warped the natural world into some surreal nightmare.
The icy walls passed by in a blur as Ratchet increased his pace, silence filling the halls where screams had once resounded. He burst into the inn breaking doors suddenly brittle from the cold as he collided into them staggering from the impact and tripping over the wooden shrapnel. He raced into the large dining room where they had last been together. Now of the once eight strong group Ratchet alone stood in the icy void that had been a warm, wood paneled haven from the cold.
Wheeljack, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe stood transfixed, their frames frozen as their optics focused hazily on a brilliantly glowing flare of light. Ratchet cursed as he knocked the flame to the floor, stomping out the light to free his darkling companions from its hold.
"Fragging, motherboard blowing undead vampires have fragged werewolves!" Ratchet snarled furiously, cursing the moon borne plague wolves that spread like a poisonous fume. "Damned incense, how the frag did they do this with Eclipsed?" He stomped the burning magnesium flare doped heavily with the incense called Eclipsed that froze all nightwalkers and their get. Once the incense had been smothered Ratchet moved first to Wheeljack and then to the twins, checking each for other injuries.
He sighed heavily, they would be fine, after the incense released them from its spell. It could be minutes before they moved, or it could be days. Ratchet growled as he turned to the minibots, each lying next to small pools of energon where armor had been shredded by talons and claws. With another snarl Ratchet pulled out potions to ward against vampire and werewolf bites, dosing each minibot and placing charms against the beasts around them.
Ratchet stood from where he had crouched by Cliffjumper's side unhappy that this was the best he could do for the minibots, but he still had two more mortals to check. He looked through the room, under benches, within private rooms used by serving bots where they normally provided a more intamite service for the paying customer. Yet he could not find Bluestreak or Aid.
Worried, Ratchet moved to the bar where various grades of energon were sold and found the floor torn out, leaving a gaping hole into a dark abyss. Ratchet's spark burned with fury, optics glowing a dangerous venom green. The beasts had stolen Blue and Aid.
"Primus protect them until I get there." Ratchet breathed, grabbing his healing satchel with deft hands he sealed the bag with special closures to protect the medicines, books and tools within. Then he tore open a false seam he had hoped to never have to touch again. He eyed the contents of the secret compartment, wishing he had another choice for rescuing Aid and Blue.
The black lined fabric of the hidden pouch held rows of stakes, vials of jellied high grade energon and holy water for combating nightwalkers. Powdered monkshood and silver tipped crossbow bolts lie next to a collapsed cross bow for battling werewolves and lycans. And, in the center of them all lay a hunter's visor, a device capable of seeing through the guises of any moon borne beast alongside a shimmering blue cube. He pulled the cube from the satchel, setting it on the floor and pressing a hidden switch on the side. With a swift step back he let the cube unfold, becoming the size of a wardrobe, and carrying something invaluable within.
Once the cube had unfurled itself from its mystical collapse a door swung open revealing a solid white coat of hunter's armor within. He had not donned his armor since his graduation, yet still his training remained sound. With swift efficient movements he slid into the plate metal and snapped the yellow hued visor over his face, strapped the weapons to his armored frame and turned to leave the room for the last time.
Just as he moved past the bar front he noticed a small mirror hanging on one wall he had overlooked before, and found himself staring at a strange mech he had never seen before. Pure white from shoulders to helm save for the yellow optic visor and dark grey chevron upon his brow. The hunter was intimidating to behold, weapons spiking up from back and sides while high shoulder guards seemed to double his real size. Behind the hunter the dining room was a mess of overturned tables and two small frames. The nightwalkers remained invisible to the glass. "It's a good thing I'm looking at my reflection," Ratchet turned for the gaping hole, "Otherwise I'd be running for the Imperial City."
Ratchet looked over his shoulder once more to his five remaining companions and prayed that they would be alright, that the two taken could be rescued, and that he was not about to do the stupidest stunt that would terminate his short life. With one last silent prayer to Primus he turned to the hole, stepped forward and vanished.
"Where is he?" Bumblebee stared in terror up at the twin nightwalkers who had posed as mechs for so long. Only they now had blue-grey porcelain, ageless faces and deep violet optics radiated hateful black hues.
"Where's who?" Bee squeaked looking rapidly between the two figures above him, the sprawled, dazed figure of Wheeljack flung carelessly to the floor to the side, and Cliffjumper barely stirring from where he had been thrown under a table like a rag doll.
"Ratchet!" Sideswipe grabbed Bumblebee by the armor, hauling him from his painful sprawl under a table dangling him by one hand on his throat. "He's not here!"
Bee froze, trembling as he stared into the slightly insane immortal optics before casting his own about the main dining hall now empty of either healer's presence save for a massive tome and a note. "There," Bee pointed a trembling hand directing the infuriated nightwalker to the table.
Sideswipe dropped Bee heavily to the floor as he suddenly vanished from sight appearing almost instantly by the far table nearest the bar.
"Nightwalkers have been hunting us?" Sideswipe asked darkly, passing the note to his brother.
"'These days of anger have been from us being prey. Others of the nightwalker race have been here, entrapping us in their vile trap of dark emotions. They have taken Aid and Bluestreak, I've gone after them. Be safe.'" Sunstreaker read haltingly, his voice betraying his mounting fury. "They're dead." It was a promise of what would happen to those who had been hunting them.
"No without me." A dark voice promised violence and death behind the twins, turning they looked Wheeljack over, seeing a deep bloodlust in his optics they had never seen before. The alchemist was transformed, normally pale plating now a dove grey hue, light lilac optics promising slow death to any who hurt his lover, the apprentice or his brother.
"We're going after him." Sunstreaker ordered, turning towards the hole uncaring of who followed. Behind him the others rose to their pedes, swiftly grabbing lost or misplaced weaponry and followed the golden nightwalker into the depths of darkness.
